Mosque can't deliver aid to Kabul school

May 8, 2003, THE JOURNAL NEWS
Section: News
Page: 1A
Khurram Saeed, Staff, The Journal News

U.S. ban on wire transfers leaves teachers’ pay in limbo

CHESTNUT RIDGE – After spending a year cutting through Afghanistan’s bureaucracy so they could open a new school in Kabul, Jerrahi Mosque officials are facing more red tape domestically.

The mosque has been unable to wire $12,000 to its bank account in Kabul because the U.S. Department of the Treasury forbids transfers to Afghanistan. The money would have paid teachers at the elementary school that opened in March.

Mosque president Gilbert Gordon said a U.S. State Department official told him the money could be not be transferred April 28 because Afghanistan’s central banking system was being overhauled.

There is also a general concern that money sent from the U.S. could be sent from or headed for terrorist organizations. Afghanistan is the former nerve center of the al-Qaida terror network, blamed for the World Trade Center attack.

Gordon said at a time when the government should welcome all the outside support it can get to rebuild Afghanistan, its actions end up impeding such efforts.

“They’re talking about giving all kinds of aid to Afghanistan, but they’re standing in the way of individuals giving aid. They’re making it difficult for us to get money there. It’s unreal,” Gordon said.

Some American Muslims are calling for changes to the policy. In part, they are concerned the Bush administration’s pledge to help rebuild Iraq will distract it from reconstructing Afghanistan.

Gordon said the official of the U.S. Agency for International Development told the mosque to deliver the funds “some other way.”

Some humanitarian agencies resort to transferring money into Afghanistan through another country or simply bring in cash.

When the Jerrahi Mosque undertook the project to open an elementary school in Kabul in early 2002, it sent $70,000 through its headquarters in Turkey, which is the home to its spiritual order.

Tosun Bayrak, the imam of the Chestnut Ridge mosque, said he’ll likely have to follow that route again. The $12,000 covers the costs of salaries for the school’s 15 teachers and support staff for one year.

“It’s easy for us,” Bayrak said. “But the point is, why should go we have through that?”

The school will serve 600 students in two sessions: boys in the morning and girls in the afternoon. Mosque officials said they wanted to make classes coeducational, but the central government wants to keep the sexes separate.

The mosque has collected at least five years’ worth of salaries for school administrators, Bayrak said. Also, he said, several members have pledged to pay one teacher’s monthly salary, about $50 a month, as long as they work at Nureddin Al-Jerrahi School, which is named after a 17th century saint of the Muslim Sufi order.

Suraya Sadeed, head of an Afghan relief agency based in Virginia, has opened four new schools in Afghanistan this year and is familiar with the problems of sending money to the country.

Her foundation, Help the Afghan Children, has raised millions of dollars worth of medical and food aid, which she has personally delivered to Afghanistan and to refugee camps in Pakistan.

“Every time I go, I literally have to take cash with me,” she said.

During her last trip in February, Sadeed carried $30,000 in her purse. Once, she took $180,000.

Sadeed, who was born in Afghanistan, has traveled to her homeland 26 times in 11 years and brought cash with her each time.

“Basically, there isn’t any way to do it,” Sadeed said. “We are very quick in making decisions about going to war, but we are extremely slow about how to handle these countries after the war.”

When the Taliban was running Afghanistan, she said, the U.S. required agencies bringing money there to secure special permits to ensure it was for humanitarian purposes. With a new Afghan government in place, groups are now allowed to take a cashier’s check, but Sadeed said there is often a lag of two to three weeks for the check to be verified and cashed.

A spokesman for the U.S. government did not return messages left for him this week.

Reach Khurram Saeed at ksaeed@thejournalnews.com or 845-578-2412.